


Unneeded

by Mithen



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Character Study, Contemplative, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-23 15:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> An overheard conversation leads Superman to reflect on need and on love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unneeded

"--sure Batman isn't all _that_ bad."

Flash's voice is diffident, polite; Green Lantern's is agitated.

"Are you kidding me? The man is a cold fish with a heart of stone."

Flash murmurs something about mixed metaphors, but Green Lantern ignores him.

"The man is emotionally _dead_ , I'm telling you. How Superman can bear to spend so much time with him--I want to punch him in the teeth after ten minutes in the same room, just to get some kind of a reaction out of him. He's so damn careful to make sure we know he doesn't care about us, doesn't need any of us..."

Green Lantern's complaints grate against Superman's eardrums; the other members of the League never seem to remember that he can't always block out their voices, and this week...well, this week has been a hard one, and he is low on energy. A school buried by a landside in China: a memory of parents' frantic voices raised in entreaty makes him wince and close his eyes. He had been in time to save almost all of the children, but still hears the ragged sobs of the grieving parents now.

"I'm just saying that Superman must be some kind of masochist to willingly associate with an aloof jerk like that." To keyed-up Kryptonian perceptions, Hal radiates viridian annoyance, jagged and raw, jabbing at Clark's senses. Next to him, Barry is a warm presence, tendrils of conciliatory crimson reaching out, entreating. Red and green demanding his attention, demanding--

Superman closes his book and goes to the airlock.

Soon he is in the air above the Earth, wrapped in the silent thin haze of the upper atmosphere at twilight. The world below him blazes with light, and even more, with urgency: disasters and crises everywhere, people who need help, people who need inspiration. Superman is needed.

He slips downward, letting gravity take him into a free-fall for a moment before re-asserting his mastery over it and soaring toward a forest fire that needs to be smothered. After that, he hears a bank robbery in Metropolis and melts their guns, not even stopping to chide them for now. A tiny yowl catches his attention and he stops to reach out to a small black cat in a tree.

The cat arches its back and hisses at him, tiny claws scraping on invulnerable skin. Clark smiles. "I'll let you do it on your own, then," he says. The cat turns its back on him and grooms its shoulder in a clear dismissal.

He stops in the air above Metropolis, listening. It isn't silent, but for now, at least, no one is dying because he isn't there. Here and there he hears his name flung into the air like a plea:

_Please let me be as brave as Superman tomorrow._

_Please Superman, can you get my parents to love each other again?_

_Oh Superman, just one date with you and I swear I'd be the happiest..._

Superman is needed: for crises and for trivialities, to lift rubble and to lift spirits. And Clark is glad to be that symbol, to help as much as possible. He chose this life, and he loves the people of Earth.

Still, as he turns north and the cooling air grows quieter, he finds himself smiling.

The weather grows more turbulent as he approaches the Fortress, stinging wind lashing his face with tiny ice crystals and howling in his ears. By the time he lands in the heart of the Fortress, his hair is starred with ice, his cape rimed with it.

"A veritable god of the storm," a dry voice remarks. Batman is working at a console, its crystals glowing violet and azure in the dimness. His cowl is down to show his unsmiling face.

Superman shakes his cape and hair before the ice can melt. "How's the research going?"

"Not bad." Batman looks down at the crystals, wrapped around a golden wand. "I think I'm making some progress in understanding what makes this tick. The Weather Wizard won't catch you by surprise next time."

"Us," Superman corrects him gently. Batman snorts but doesn't argue.

Superman puts on his glasses; Bruce arches an eyebrow at him, but he's gotten used to Clark's foibles about the glasses. "It's more convenient to read from the computers," Batman says.

"I like something I can touch," Clark retorts, settling down on a silver chair to read. Borges this week, the gilt-edged pages of the leather-bound edition rustling softly as he turns them.

Batman mutters something about being a soppy sentimentalist. Clark ignores him and keeps reading (the book is signed on the flyleaf: "To Clark from Bruce with my most sincere affection"), and silence falls in the Fortress, broken only by the occasional faint crystal chime and the distant wail of the storm.

Clark feels the raw edges of his soul easing in the hush, feels the tense muscles of his shoulders relaxing. Beyond the book, to his alien perception, Bruce's aura is as smooth and compact as a polished gem, a black opal with a banked fire deep within. Self-contained, complete unto itself, it glows without burning, without reaching, without demanding.

When he finishes his story, Clark rises and goes to stand behind Bruce, dropping a kiss on the bare nape of his neck. Anyone else would say Bruce ignored the touch entirely; Clark can feel beneath his lips the way Bruce shifts back into the touch like a cat, a movement too small for the naked eye. The tiny noise in the back of Bruce's throat, drowned out for most by even the muffled wind, is like a shout of exultation to him.

"I'm going to get something to eat, I think," Clark says. "Is there anything you need?"

"What I _need_ is some peace and quiet to focus," Bruce snaps, glaring down at the golden wand.

Clark kisses him again and is back in his chair a moment later, book in one hand and a cookie in the other. A glass of milk perches on a jutting silver crystal. Bruce shoots him a quick, impassive look that could be taken for annoyed; Clark hears the silken whisper of his pupils dilating in that brief glance.

The wind dies away and the Northern Lights begin to flicker and flame above the Fortress.

Unneeded, loved, Clark reads on in peace.


End file.
